Using Excel as a Data Source

[SueC]

Happy New Year all!Ã,  You've been busy whilst I've been away.Ã,  I have a lot to catch up on!

I need some quick advice here.Ã,  I already know what the best practice is - DON'T use Excel.Ã,  Period.Ã,  But the business need is going to drive us to use it as a data source for this years' sales forecast.Ã,  As I see it my only two options really are 1) pull the spreadsheet into a table and join that up to the actual sales data via Framework Manager; or 2) Force the users to learn EP, enter the forecast, extract it into a star schema, run it through Decision Stream (this isn't my area of expertise so forgive my ignorance) and pull it into the datamart.

Are there other options?Ã,  The goal is to create a report showing current year sales (last week, MTD, YTD) for each customer, burst it and email it to each sales rep on a weekly basis.Ã,  It would be easier in Cognos 8 (I think) but that's not even on the planning board yet.

All suggestions will be greatfully accepted!

Sue

[Boris-A]

You could link to the excel spreadsheet directly using an ODBC connection.  This would save you the step of throwing it into a table.

You could also load the excel spreadsheet directly into a datamart via Decision Stream.

Hope this was of some help

[SueC]

We tried linking a small version via ODBC and the test query which would have returned only 5 records took 15 minutes.   I think management is going to force them to put the forecast into Enterprise Planning (where it belongs IMO).  We'll see - should be an interesting meeting in about an hour.

Thanks for the response Boris-A.

Sue

[Boris-A]

How did the meeting go ?  This is always interesting to see how it evolves... in my opinion.. coming from the business side, I kinda like these things.

cheers

[SueC]

Well, eventhough I was getting mixed messages from the boss all day, he stuck to his guns and his edict of 'no Excel spreadsheets in the production path'.  He told sales that EP was their only choice.  They told him to find someone to build the model and enter the data by the end of Jan.  Guess the real winner is Cognos Consulting, though I haven't heard anything more on the subject since Wednesday. 

The real bugger is that I've been told not to even work on the end product report so it's ready to go when they get their $#!% together.  It's a burst report and I've not done one of those yet so I know it will take extra time.

I hate politics its such a waste of time.  I'd so rather just get people what they need and move on.  Sigh.

SueC :-\

[SueC]

closing topic